"The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz": Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth Look Back at Wicked Ten Years Later

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24 Oct 2013

Kristin Chenoweth in Wicked.

Photo by Joan Marcus

Tony Award-winning actresses Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who created the respective roles of Elphaba and Glinda — the not-so Wicked Witches of Oz — take a trip down memory lane and individually chat with Playbill about the long-running, hit musical that stormed Broadway ten years ago.

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"It was so good to be together again," said Kristin Chenoweth, who recently met with Idina Menzel — her co-star and comrade in Wicked, which opened on Broadway Oct. 30, 2003 — in celebration of the show's tenth anniversary at the Gershwin Theatre.

"I always knew it was something special in the beginning," admitted Menzel, "but I had no idea that it would become this phenomenon."

Although Menzel did not suspect Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's Wicked to turn into the mega-hit musical that it is now — with theatregoers still rushing to the Gershwin and the production still topping box-office charts — Chenoweth did.

"I just remember saying to Idina, 'Man… It's not going to matter what the critics say. Do you hear that? Do you hear that audience?' That's what I remember from intermission," Chenoweth recalled of opening night.

Menzel, on the other hand, "was probably out of my body a little bit" after taking flight Oct. 30, 2003, and "Defying Gravity" at the end of the show's first act. "I get like that," she admitted. "When I'm doing my thing — when I'm so involved in it — I can't remember what I did, so that's why you have people around you to tell you. You just lose yourself in what you are doing. And, those are the best moments."